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Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

politico.eu

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Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#91

Post by bkor »

Jolter wrote: post #31
bkor wrote: post #7

What a weird article. Loads of international companies operate in countries with wildly different laws, standards of living, disposable income, etc. Why compare Sweden with a Polish warehouse workers and not investigate how e.g. Amazon.fr operates? That country at least goes on strike significantly more often (probably more so than the rest of the EU combined). Meaning, one year I noticed them on strike every other w…

I don't know if you've quite understood how Swedish labor law differs from the French. Sweden is a little unique in that we have fewer strikes than most European countries. The reason is the "fredsplikt": as long as there is a collective bargaining agreement in place, if a worker goes on strike they can be legally laid off for shirking work. So, strikes will only happen at most every two-three years when the current…

> I don't know if you've quite understood how Swedish labor law differs from the French.

Obviously I don't know Swedish labour law.

What I'm after is something completely different: Amazon is able to operate in France just fine. I think France is NOT an easy country to operate in. Meaning, I think the article is not trying to pretend things are more difficult than they are in practice. Or: a non-story.

The bits you mention about collective labour agreements also applies to e.g. Netherlands. It partly there to also prevent unfair competition. The prices might be a bit higher or something, but again, not really a story.

It's interesting that other businesses restrict/block other companies. Within Netherlands the government (or at most a judge, possible due to unions) would ensure that such the company is forced to comply.

If the article actually mentioned the details where Amazon might try to ignore it, then go into detail why it would backfire, that would add something interesting. At the moment the article is poor and a non-story.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#92

Post by bkor »

UK-Al05 wrote: post #51
Jolter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've quite understood how Swedish labor law differs from the French. Sweden is a little unique in that we have fewer strikes than most European countries. The reason is the "fredsplikt": as long as there is a collective bargaining agreement in place, if a worker goes on strike they can be legally laid off for shirking work. So, strikes will only happen at most every two-three years when the current…

Amazon doesn't compete on lower salaries, it competes on automation. Amazon actually lobbies for higher salaries, it hurts the competitors who don't use as much automation and are not great at operational efficiency. It's a myth the amazon pay low salaries. They they just optimise the heck out of everything. It's pretty smart in many ways, as its great PR and destroys your competitors if its national law.

> Amazon doesn't compete on lower salaries, it competes on automation.

Talking about automation and then the warehouse bit:

Automation in warehouses is something that was in the news in Netherlands recently. Some supermarket opened an partly automated warehouse, the news brought it as something unique. From the comments it was clear that various other supermarkets did that already either years ago, recently or they have such more automated warehouses under construction. Apparently fully automated is very difficult.

Having an automated warehouse isn't something that another company cannot do and/or requires unique expertise. Apparently various supermarkets hired the same company to build their warehouse.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#93

Post by progre »

menybuvico wrote: post #24
waihtis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially true, my reflection point is Finland instead of Sweden. Unions over here are however thinly masked extensions of political parties, yes they operate somewhat independently but each political party has a 'favourite' union who they influence through unofficial channels.

Sweden and Finland are pretty alike, but Sweden's system has a bit less political interference compared to how it's here in Finland. The ruling Social Democratic Party has strong ties with the unions though.

They have traditional strong ties to one subset of the unions, the LO ones. But it's complex: LO is often openly critical of the (ruling) Social Democratic Party. At the same time a large chunk of the actual union members are voting for a different party, often one in opposition to the Social Democrats.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#94

Post by UK-Al05 »

bkor wrote: post #92
UK-Al05 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon doesn't compete on lower salaries, it competes on automation. Amazon actually lobbies for higher salaries, it hurts the competitors who don't use as much automation and are not great at operational efficiency. It's a myth the amazon pay low salaries. They they just optimise the heck out of everything. It's pretty smart in many ways, as its great PR and destroys your competitors if its national law.

> Amazon doesn't compete on lower salaries, it competes on automation. Talking about automation and then the warehouse bit: Automation in warehouses is something that was in the news in Netherlands recently. Some supermarket opened an partly automated warehouse, the news brought it as something unique. From the comments it was clear that various other supermarkets did that already either years ago, recently or they h…

Automation is only a part of it. As you say an automated warehouse anyone can buy from an automated warehouse provider assuming they're big enough to afford it.

It's about operational efficiency. It's the culture. Things like kaizen, optimising everything, having teams that work out exactly where the products should go etc etc. How should the packing stations be positioned, how should they be designed? What slows down the workers on the packing stations? Small improvements to the tools they every day. Constant small improvements everyday. Anyone should be able to suggest improvements. Try multiple experiments, most of them won't work. It builds up like a flywheel overtime, and then other companies won't be able to catch up.

Companies try to replicate it, buts its harder then just buying a warehouse from company x. Frankly you need the leadership for it, and whole lot of time, money and patience for it to pay off.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#95

Post by josefx »

UK-Al05 wrote: post #75
josefx wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the "essential products list" does not exist, which is the key complaint in any discussion about this. Amazon invented a requirement that does not exist to claim that the requirements are to vague to implement. The list the court provided is explicit in the court documents, meanwhile the "essential products" is subject to the imagination of every armchair free market capitalist. You wont find it googling, you wo…

What requirements did they place on amazon then?

Given that Amazon had failed two safety inspections beforehand the main requirement was: Work with union representatives and safety inspectors to draw up and enforce appropriate safety measures for covid, instead of ignoring them as they did after the previous incidents. The court considered a month as appropriate for this.

During this month they were to keep operations artificially low. As far as I could find the court cut down the categories they could sell to around 10% of what they normally sold to ensure reduced activity. They were also reminded to enforce the existing social distancing rules, avoid large meetings, etc. . I currently regret not keeping a link to the list of categories around when I found it shortly after the court case, now Google only seems to return a flood of news pages all repeating the same source free articles.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#96

Post by encom »

Jolter wrote: post #83
encom wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do, but it has been eroded somewhat, especially by the "yellow" unions, that aren't unions at all.

Has any "yellow" union been formed yet, though? Link?

Yes, there are plenty of them. Just off the top of my head there are Krifa, Det Faglige Hus, Frie Funktionærer and some others that I've forgotten.

They are bloodsucking leeches, benefiting from the work done by real proper unions, and their members are rightfully shunned in some workplaces.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#97

Post by UK-Al05 »

josefx wrote: post #95
UK-Al05 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What requirements did they place on amazon then?

Given that Amazon had failed two safety inspections beforehand the main requirement was: Work with union representatives and safety inspectors to draw up and enforce appropriate safety measures for covid, instead of ignoring them as they did after the previous incidents. The court considered a month as appropriate for this. During this month they were to keep operations artificially low. As far as I could find the co…

And they decided those close down because the strain on them by those requirements.

Whats the problem with that?

People seem resentful they closed because they calculated it wasn't worth operating. What do people expect? increase the difficulty of doing business and you won't have business operating.

I also suspect they felt they would be dealt with unfairly compared to native retailers, as the goverment has called Amazon a threat the French way of life and other rhetoric.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#98

Post by username90 »

guerrilla wrote: post #78
jeltz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would they be able to leverage demand? I can't see our politicians wanting to get involved in this fight, especially not on Amazon's side. Why would they want to support Amazon against both unions and againast Swedish companies? I think they will just remove themselves from the conflict and let it play out. I can't see a scenario where Amazon does not have to agree to collective bargaining.

Swedish naiveté always amazes me.

Unlike USA Swedish politicians mostly comes from working class backgrounds. Their friends and family are working class. If they do something that is bad for the working class it will ruin their social lives, so they wont. And since the working/lower middle class is the biggest class they have no problems getting elected.

This is how democracy is supposed to work.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#99

Post by Yetanfou »

kalleboo wrote: post #36
redgc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always attempt to shop from Amazon Germany because (a) larger variety of items, and (b) I feel I can trust the reviews there. Have you found Swedish e-commerce sites to have enough reliable reviews to buy anything with confidence, or do you tend to buy products that you can find reviews of elsewhere? I joke to my wife, "If 500 Germans say it's good, I'm sold"

When I lived in Sweden I was a religious user of prisjakt.nu and thought the reviews there were decent

Yup, that's what I'm using as well, usually in combination with a check on ebay.de and ebay.co.uk for products which fit the bill - i.e. not for heavy, bulky goods like fridges and washing machines but certainly for smaller electronics and tools. For larger computer hardware - servers etc - I tend to look towards Germany and the UK since prices tend to be quite a bit lower than here in Sweden. I have only bought something at Amazon once, using the French version, my reasons being that they tended not to want to ship to Sweden and even if they do the price tended to be matched by other sellers. I do not want to get an Amazon monoculture so I'll continue to do so unless the price difference ends up so big that the offer is "too good to refuse". Swedish prices tend to be on the high side but they have come down, most likely due to competition from abroad. The Swedish postal service does its best to counteract this by putting a fine on parcels from outside the EU - they call it a handling charge but that is just word play, the intention is both for them to pad their budget and for you to stop buying from overseas - so I've been exploring ways to get around this by having goods delivered to the Netherlands (where I'm originally from) to import them myself when I happen to be there.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#100

Post by Yetanfou »

navidfarhadi wrote: post #42
kalleboo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I lived in Sweden I was a religious user of prisjakt.nu and thought the reviews there were decent

I use prisjakt regularly as well but mainly for the price comparison feature between retailers. The reviews on the website are decent as well though but there are typically a couple orders of magnitude fewer reviews on products than on Amazon DE/UK/US.

The question here is whether the reviews on prisjakt.nu are fewer because they're true reviews while those on Amazon often are fake. The prevalence of fake reviews - both positive as well as negative - has made it more or less impossible to rely on them as a guide.
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